Pointblank
by Keiran
Summary: Not too long after the Cuban missile crisis, Erik is captured. Charles rescues him.


Title: Point-blank

Rating: 14

Genre: drama

Pairings: Charles/Erik

Wordcount: 4.5k

Warnings: implied torture

Summary: Not too long after the Cuban missile crisis, Erik is captured. Charles rescues him.

Author's Note: written for the 1st class kink meme, ostensibly for the prompt "Charles is an omega-level mutant," but influenced by a wider selection.

Betaed by yami_tai. 3

It occurs to Erik that he is not all-powerful. It is something of a surprise. After all, he knows what it's like to stand at the edge of an oil platform and icall/i until the pipes rise from the seabed and twist into the shapes he requires, like giant sea-serpents wholly subject to his whim. He knows the surge of adrenaline caused by the creak of the straining metal, which resists but ultimately submits to his will causing the support beams to bend so that the mighty construction kneels before him, as ultimately its masters will one day.

He knows power, intimately.

This realisation is therefore a shock, a humiliation, a nightmare he knows he won't soon wake from.

It's not even the worst thing, he thinks, staring helplessly at the straps that bind him to the table, the metal table whose edges, whose very existence, he should feel in his mind, but can't. It is stainless steel, he can tell by the texture of the surface, which he should feel as keenly as his own toes. Instead, there is nothing there. It doesn't stop him from trying, but the table, the bonds, are as immobile as a Third Reich coin.

"Don't you worry, Mr Lensherr," says a voice to his right. "We will make this as painless as possible."

He doesn't honour the man with a response. No, his attention is riveted to the other person in the room, the silent figure of a young man who watches him with fear in his eyes. He perches on the edge of a stool and watches him, frightened and yet excited, leaning forward in anticipation.

A mutant. They are using a mutant to keep him contained. Erik closes his eyes and doesn't react when a needle penetrates the skin of the crook of his elbow. He feels the drug spread through his system, he doesn't understand how, but he feels it travel. It's warm and soothing, unlike everything else here; it whispers a promise of absolution, of oblivion and safety. It promises freedom.

He fights it. iGott im Himmel/i, how he fights it.

It is gratifying to find he is somewhat successful. He is still awake, fifteen minutes later. He cannot move, but he is awake. His eyes burn, because his eyelids won't obey him, he cannot blink, but he is awake and he will know. It is a small mercy.

Erik stares at the ceiling, stripped of choice, and thinks ihow fitting/i. He was born on a steel table like this one, with a merciless maniac with a scalpel poised over him, and on a very similar table he will die, subject to the tender mercies of doctors who have chosen to turn away from their humanity and become these creatures of no conscience, no soul, of inichts, niemals, nirgendwo. Erik ist allein, er is immer allein, sein Kopf ist leer wie seine Seele, wie süß, er denkt er hat eine Seele immer noch, wenn…/i

He blinks at the brightness of the light. The sluggish pull of his muscles fills him with joy, because he feels pain where the bonds tug at his wrists. His limbs resist, but he feels it, he is alive and he is still whole, but for the gaping maw of darkness where the his gift normally resides in his head.

He doesn't give his captors the pleasure of asking about the delay. He glares at the mutant in the corner, who stares at him fearfully, but with no regret.

"I will kill you," he says simply, when his tongue is no longer numb.

"You can't move."

"That doesn't matter. You are one of us and you work with them. You work against us. I will kill you," he promises, calmly.

"You think you still have a chance? You don't." The mutant stands, approaches him warily. He wrings his hands and though his face is unremarkable, the expression he wears twists it into something inhuman, ugly. He is one of ithem/i. "Do you know why you're even alive? They are bringing someone in to observe. Someone actually wants to know what's in your head, what makes you tick."

Erik graces this with a raised eyebrow. "I'm not surprised," he says pleasantly.

"You won't escape," the mutant promises, and his forefinger jabs Erik's bicep and if Erik thought being in the same room as this leech was bad, being touched by him is far worse.

He remembers the precise moment his gift was taken from him. It felt like a shower of icy water, a punch to the solar plexus, like being denied air. Now his skin crawls, his veins burn and his lungs freeze. He's empty; there is nothing in him, nothing whatsoever. No thought, no hope, no memory, no plan. He is an empty shell, a sack of bones and flesh and blood.

iCharles./i

Erik gasps when the mutant retreats to his corner.

Suddenly vivisection sounds like a splendid idea.

They make him wait, all the same. He doesn't even know for how long, there is no clock in his field of vision and he will not ask. He hears the door open, eventually, and he still can't move. He can't quite differentiate between the bonds and the sluggishness of his limbs anymore. Even if he were freed from the straps, he might not be able to move and the light is so bright in his eyes.

He almost welcomes the doctor.

"And here is our primary subject, Professor, you will note what excellent company we keep," says the doctor who drugged him earlier. "None other than Magneto himself!" Erik watches the ceiling. He hears no steps, but he hears another person breathing, and the faint noise wheels of a wheelchair make. He can't help but feel a grim sense of satisfaction at that.

"Is he unconscious?" the guest asks and Erik stays still only by virtue of digging the nails of his hand, the one that's hidden from their view, into his palm until it bleeds.

iCharles!/i

There's a roar in his chest, a roar of pain and panic, of anger which turns to fury then hatred that, if he could only grasp at his gift, a tiny sliver of it, he would pour himself into and move the world on its axis.

He cannot, and Charles is still there, looking at him dispassionately, like he is observing a particularly clever lab rat and Erik's mind races. His eyes are empty and dead, not unlike the doctor's. Erik thinks how he hates this man, he thinks he's been betrayed, by Charles of all people, ier denkt, bitte, Charles, lauf! Sie können dich nicht fassen, bitte, jemand, irgenwer, hör mich, bitte, nimm Charles weg! Lauf, bevor sie dich fassen/i.

There are soldiers behind him, two of them. One of them is pushing the wheelchair, the other stands to one side, gun at the ready, and Erik is grateful for the fact that his head is still swimming, as he realises Charles is a prisoner too and that he won't have to watch what they do to him.

He hopes they kill him first.

Erik blinks and Charles is still looking at him with an empty expression on his face. Drugs will do that to a man, Erik thinks.

"I must say it's quite the honour, which I hasten to assure you we fully appreciate," the doctor says. He turns towards Erik and picks up a syringe. "I apologise for the delay, Mr Lensherr. Shall we begin?"

Erik doesn't take his eyes off Charles, while the syringe nears his arm, he begs silently for the man to get up and go, to run, while he still can. He is not tied down, and though the leech must undoubtedly be causing him discomfort - Erik can feel the lack of his gift all the way through his body, the burning lack of it, the empty hole where it should be, and his gift is to move cold, unfeeling metal. For Charles, whose gift is to move people's minds, it must be worse than being buried alive - he smiles.

He smiles.

Erik watches, but doesn't fully understand as Charles' hands disappear under the blanket he has spread over his knees to come up with two handguns.

He struggles to piece together what it means when the muzzles bark, simultaneously, and the two soldiers fall to the floor, then once more and the mutant, the leech, crumples in his seat with a red hole between his murky grey eyes.

Erik doesn't understand the stillness of the doctor who is still poised above him, doesn't understand the vacant expression on his face. He watches Charles, who hides the guns and turns the wheelchair so that he faces the door.

The doctor shakes his head and straightens. The syringe is returned to the table and Erik feels something. It is a drip, at first; the first droplets of the rain after a drought. The fall is a blessing, salvation, it is life itself. More come, raining upon his head as his heart soars. Soon they start coming in clusters and then rivulets, and then it is pouring, his gift is pouring into him, the edges of the room are sharp again, he can trace them with his mind, he can feel every molecule of metal, from the scalpels and drills on the steel table to the coins Charles has in his pocket and it vibrates within Erik, shining and ihe is alive again/i.

"Don't," Charles says in his head, still watching the door. "Don't move. Don't react."

The doctor is undoing the bindings, and Erik shoots up, grabs the man by the throat even as the room stills.

"Don't," Charles says again out loud this time, and Erik, still feeling the drugs coursing through his veins, obliges. He doesn't even know why he staggers as he gets off the table - not true, he knows, he staggers because he is still high, because he can't see straight, because his legs are asleep - and falls to his knees beside Charles.

He didn't plan it this way, but since he can think of no better place to be, he stays where he is.

"Are you well?" Charles asks and his hand is suddenly on Erik's shoulder. "Can you walk?"

"Yes, of course," Erik says and doesn't move. He's shaking. He tells himself it's the drugs. "I thought they caught you. I thought…"

"I know." There is a smile on his face and profound relief. "I was in time, then. Thank God."

Something finally filters through Erik's mind and he lets himself notice the room, the three bodies, bleeding onto the floor, the unmoving doctor. He turns his gaze to Charles, and stares.

"I need you to stay perfectly calm, my friend," Charles says, but the words he is saying dissolve in the haze caused by the touch of his fingers on Erik's face. "You must promise you won't fight."

"They deserve to burn," he says. Not just because they planned on killing him, after all, Erik is no hypocrite - he would kill them first, if he had the chance. But to turn mutants against one another like this, for sport and experiments, not even Charles will persuade him otherwise.

"This place does," Charles says and Erik just stares. "And it will. But you will let me handle it, because you are not well and this drug they forced into you might have repercussions on your control."

Erik scoffs and he would protest, he wants to protest, because Charles is weak, he can't understand that some evils go right down to the core, but the smell, Lord, the smell of soap and fine wool, the feel of it on his cheek, the fine strands of hair he feels against his fingers, the warmth that surrounds him, he cannot let it go just yet. Just one more minute, just one more, if it makes him stay, he will promise.

"Thank you," Charles says and for a minute longer the world is still and perfect.

Then, the doctor moves and Erik is on his feet, a touch unsteadily, but he can walk. He pulls a jacket off one of the soldiers. It's damp from where the blood seeped onto the shoulder and it is hardly a good fit, but it is better than walking out shirtless. His fingers fumble as he buttons it, and he needs to prop himself against the wall to remain standing, but he manages in the end.

"Hold on to the wheelchair," Charles commands softly and Erik can't help but grin at the beauty of this plan. Charles must naturally concentrate on projecting the illusions into the minds they encounter, he has little to spare for supporting him, when he can't walk straight. That, and the wheelchair is an excellent hiding place for weaponry.

"I thought you said you can't shoot people point-blank," he says as his fingers brush the back of Charles' neck and the doctor opens the door for them.

"I said I can't shoot a friend point-blank," Charles lies.

Erik pushes the wheelchair over the threshold and focuses on not stumbling. It requires effort. He feels the metal around him hum, he feels its song, it's almost like the welcoming arms of a loving family. His head is no longer empty, he feels alive, he feels safe.

He could rip this place apart, if he chose to.

"Turn left," Charles says. His hand is at his temple and no one challenges them, no one even looks twice as they walk past, Charles, Erik and the doctor.

Erik turns and stops at an elevator. He can't resist and pushes the button from ten feet away.

It feels wonderful. It feels almost as good as the impish grin Charles throws his way, even though he had misjudged and the button is now pressed an inch into the wall and the panel it is encased in is folded in on itself. Charles still smiles at him and for a moment - when the door of the elevator close - they laugh out loud while the doctor watches, impassively.

The ride is short. There are no displays in the elevator, but Erik counts the steel rings they pass along the way, guessing they must signify floors. There are four and then the elevator stops. Erik pushes the wheelchair out and he is grinning now, even as the doctor steps behind him.

With every moment the torrent raining upon him strengthens. With every passing second his awareness of the metal around him grows stronger. He knows the quarter in Charles' pocket was minted in 1954, he knows he has a silver chain with a crucifix around his neck, he knows there are nails holding the soles of his shoes together. The knowledge rolls through him, buzzing, and the storm keeps coming and it will hit him within minutes, and then he will burst and the world will be shrapnel and the squeal of steel against concrete, the whines and screams of dying men.

It would be, but for the gentle warmth that gathers him close, brushing against the surface of his mind and Erik turns to it, blind and trusting. He welcomes it, welcomes Charles and when he whispers, "Trust me," Erik closes his eyes and keeps walking.

They are almost at the door when Eric feels it again. The warm rain, which brought him back to life, turns icy cold and it is hurting him, burning through his skin and the warmth in his head is extinguished like the flame of a candle.

"No!" he roars as he sees a squad before them, with guns at the ready, and among them a face of the leech, a twin of the creature from before, a monster, and the guns are fixed on Charles, who may have the pitiful pistols, but is otherwise unarmed, and they will die, here and now. Erik doesn't even notice when his hands grasp Charles' shoulders to turn the chair over and he pulls them both behind the concrete which frames the door.

The chair is blown to pieces within seconds, but Charles doesn't seem bothered. He holds on to the gun even as he hits the floor and puts a bullet through the doctor's brain, before the man conquers the psychic stupor.

"Trust me," Charles repeats, looking at Erik, and smiles. Erik's hands close into fists around the material of Charles' suit as he closes his eyes and puts a hand to his temple.

The bullets send chunks of concrete flying around them. Erik bends over Charles, seeking perhaps to replace the warmth in his mind with equally painful warmth of Charles' body. He can feel it through the suit, he can feel it through the fabric and he can do no more than to let it seep into him even as they die.

Strange, he can think of no better way to die than here and now, with Charles curled in his arms.

Then the shooting stops, Charles is looking straight at him in triumph and his eyes are endless. Erik dares to look outside, through the broken glass and he sees the mutant on his knees, clutching his head. Around him the soldiers look confused but the rain inside Erik grows warmer and warmer and then, when one of the men turns and puts the gun to the mutant's head and pulls the trigger the rain turns into a river, the river turns into an ocean and Erik laughs.

Beside him Charles grins.

Outside, the soldiers drag the body to the side and clear the space enough for a helicopter, which Erik can hear in the distance, to land.

Erik pulls himself up and stands in the doorway. They are not paying attention to him, not one. "You did this," he says as he turns to look at Charles. "How?"

"The power they have, they had, is not constant. They projected it in bursts," Charles says. He doesn't get up from the floor. "It a question of shooting between the sails of the windmill."

How fast was the windmill? Eric wants to ask, when he couldn't feel it, when for him it was an impenetrable wall of cold and deathly calm.

Charles shrugs and the movement causes him to slide down the wall he's leaning against.

Erik feels dread. The drugs are wearing off; he's strong again. He could make the facility dance. But despite the warm presence at his side he feels cold when he sees - finally sees - how Charles sits against the wall, at the haphazard splay of his legs and the fact that he is still on the floor, instead of standing beside him.

He finally allows himself to see the wheelchair.

"Charles," he says and the word is lost in the noise of a landing helicopter.

"Go," Charles says. "The pilot will take you wherever you need to be."

"No."

"Go! I'll be quite safe."

"Does anyone know you're here?" Erik asks and knows - he knows and doesn't even need to see Charles smile ruefully - that he's told no one about his little escapade. "You are the greatest fool I have ever met."

"Yes, I suppose I am," Charles says.

Someone is coming towards them, a guard. He carries a chair in one hand, which he sets beside Charles and bends to help him into it.

The chair hits the wall on the other side of the lobby and the guard very nearly follows it. There is metal on his belt, a badge on his chest, a chain on his neck - Erik can make him do anything at all.

He doesn't do anything but hold him in place.

"No," Erik says again. Outside the helicopter is waiting. The soldiers, who have been trying to shoot them to pieces minutes ago, stand around it, hands folded behind their backs, all twenty of them. The staff of the facility go about their business as though nothing happened, ignoring the debris and the deformed bullets on the marble floor, and through it all Charles is smiling at him gently, still half-laying on the ground.

He is everywhere, Erik realises. He is in the heads of the soldiers; he is in the heads of the nurses and scientists, the guards and the pilots, the security guards and the cleaning staff. They don't know, they will never remember this night, because Charles is everywhere. Erik, though he's no telepath, feels him, feels the tendrils of his presence permeate him, the air which they breathe, and the ground on which they stand, and he knows this precisely because Charles is everywhere that he allows him to see it. He can touch every mind Charles touches; speak to every last one of them. He knows what they feel, he knows the reasons they are here, he knows them as well as they know themselves, better, because he knows without the ego that accompanies self-awareness.

He returns to Charles, in the end, because the streams of consciousness all return to Charles, like the rivers must all flow into the ocean. He holds them all in his hands and Erik sees and knows and feels that there is no limit to what he could make them do, because they are him. In that moment, all of them, every last one, they are Charles', they are Charles.

It occurs to him that the only reason he isn't, is because Charles doesn't want him to be.

It occurs to him that it doesn't matter, because he is, all the same.

He welcomes it.

And yet…

And yet Charles is on the floor, among shattered glass and bits of concrete, unable to stand of his own volition and through the current of thought he pushes, he fights against it. He is looking for something and it is like diving into the ocean for a pebble thrown into a river, so he begs, soundlessly, until Charles finally lets him see and feel the sand and smell the sea, feel the bullet in the base of his spine.

All of this takes less than a minute.

Erik stares at Charles and fights his way out of the current. He is disappointed when Charles looks away and lets him go so that he is mostly alone in his head and he cannot breathe for it. Worse, he can't look away, even now, because if that is what Charles is, the shining creature who is everywhere, in every mind, then Erik has lost before he has even begun his quest.

Charles is ieverything/i.

Erik kneels and picks him up. There is a tense moment when he's not sure whether he'll be able to stand, as his feet are still quite confused, but he does. The buckle on Charles' belt helps to carry the weight and Erik walks out of the damned place carrying Charles in his arms, like he was fragile, like he was mortal.

"I would have been fine," Charles says when Erik puts him into a seat in the helicopter and wills the buckles of the seat belts to fasten around his chest.

"I know you would." He knows and he burns with that knowledge, as he gets into the helicopter himself.

The pilot's head bobs, like he is nodding to himself, and they take to the sky, circling the compound.

It is something of a surprise for Erik to discover that his fingers are entwined with Charles'. He closes his eyes and reaches out blindly for the warmth, because he needs to see, he wants to see.

There are hundreds of them. He sees each one. Every man and woman inside the massive building, which is half-hidden underground. They are perfectly pleasant, some of them. People, just doing their jobs, and he thinks he can understand now what Charles meant. Most of them have no idea what lies below, some don't even have the capacity to understand.

Some of them, though, make his skin crawl, because in their minds he sees Shaw, or something so much like Shaw, he cannot tell the difference.

Charles can. For him they are as different as he is different from Erik.

Explosions flit through their minds. The soldiers take care of it. There are barrels of gasoline, flammable liquids, all kinds of materials easily available in such a place. The twenty who shot at them remain to place the makeshift explosives throughout the facility. They are knowledgeable and thorough, they know the structure so the charges are put where they will do the most damage. Erik watches them through Charles, while the civilians exit and start walking away in all directions. Most of them will not remember this night, won't remember the reason they are miles from their workplace, only that there was a fire drill and they ran. Those are the lucky ones.

The others… they will remember. They will remember being experimented on, they will remember the tests, the needles and drills and pain. They will remember the sight of scalpels hovering fractions of inches above their irises, the sight of their own flesh being cut open for idle curiosity. They will remember breaking free and setting their hell on fire. And they will never forget. They will wake at night screaming, because the images in their minds will never relent, never fade.

Erik's hold around Charles' hand tightens as the soldiers exit the building and start a fire that will spiral out of control and trigger the charges they prepared. It is only when the fire is buzzing in earnest and the soldiers scatter that they finally fly away. The minds disappear one by one from Erik's consciousness. He can tell, by the way Charles' fingers spasm in his, when they are equals again, like Charles believes they always are.

"Where can you go that's safe?" Charles asks in a whisper. He leans towards Erik and they are so close, Erik cannot breathe.

He looks away and names a place, one he knows Emma monitors.

He knows the word "home" is on the tip of Charles' tongue. He tastes it. He's not surprised that it is like honey and quinine and that it burns itself into his mind, as it burns in his mouth. He draws it in with every breath now and he will taste it on food, smell it on the wind. For as long as he lives, he will keep tasting the word and he will keep resisting its pull.

"Good bye, Charles," he says when they land in a clearing in the middle of a forest. "Thank you," he adds when the helicopter takes to the sky again.

He sees Charles smile, even as the machine disappears in the distance.

THE END

Author's Note: I would be happy to discuss and defend the tactics Charles' uses in this fic. In conclusion: Erik can kill you horribly with your spare change, but iCharles can make you like it/i.


End file.
